Unofficial Portkey Archive

A/N: This is what happens when it's raining outside, you don't have anything to watch on TV and your iPod dies. This isn't one of my best but I still want you all to read it. Warning: Fluffier than my normal works.

Disclaimer: If I were J.K. Rowling, Harry and Hermione would be canon. But they aren't. Therefore, I am not J.K. Rowling.

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For the past nine years of his life she was always there by his side. And for the past nine years, he'd gotten so used to having her around that he'd never bothered to think what his life would be like without her hand gripping his arm. That is, until she decided to pursue further education in Germany leaving him in England as he trained to become an auror.

It was then that he started to panic. He couldn't see how he'd go to work without her usual goodbye hug, how he'd have pancakes and sausages every Saturday without her to prepare the coffee. He didn't know who he'd have lunch with every Wednesday at Sam's Diner, didn't know who he'd spend `Friday Night In's with. And it seemed as though he no longer knew how to function knowing she wouldn't be there by his side.

He told her all this and she simply laughed and told him not to be so silly, that she'd only be gone for five months and that she was sure he'd be able to survive. And for once, he knew she was wrong.

He drove her to the airport a few days after that and he couldn't help but notice the way her hand was gripping his arm as she did for the past few years. How would he go on for five months without this? He realized that he was desperately dependent on that hand guiding him here and there, on her constant nagging and her bossiness. He lived off of her smiles and her laughs and as she hugged him goodbye, he wondered why he never wanted to let her go.

And so four and a half months after, he spent every night wondering what his life would have been like if they'd never met. What if she never barged into their compartment asking them if they'd seen some boy's toad? What if she never followed them into a forbidden corridor and then ran with them into a room with a three-headed dog inside it? What if he didn't bother to go look for her that day a stupid man let an even more stupid troll inside Hogwarts? And as often as he wondered, he came to the conclusion that if he wouldn't be dead miserable right now if he hadn't met her, he'd be plain dead before his first year had even ended.

Miserably, he went down to the kitchen to prepare his breakfast when he saw her standing in front of the stove, cooking what he would later on find out to be pancakes. A smile lit up his face as he also noted her unpacked luggage in the middle of their living room.

"You sure you know what you're doing there?" he said. She let out a soft gasp and turned around. "I don't want you burning down my kitchen, you know."

She set the pancakes down on a plate, placed her hands on her hips and said "It's my kitchen too, you git." He saw her lips twitch as she tried not to smile.

"Not for the past four and a half months it hasn't." He retorted

"Well now, I'm back and so is my part-ownership to it." She said, the smile finally escaping her lips as she now tried to control her laughter.

"Noted." He replied "So, don't I even get a hug?" and with that her resolve shattered as she ran into his waiting arms and laughed. He spun her around in sheer joy and revelled at the feeling of her pressed up against him after such a long time. Merlin, how he'd missed this. He set her down and looked into her brown eyes.

Softly he told her "I've been waiting for you."

She grinned up at him and replied, equally soft "Not as long as I've been waiting for you, I'm sure."

And then he realized just how stupid he was for not seeing what was in front of him all this time. "I'm sorry. You should know how daft I am." He said

"I do. But it still took you a bloody long time. You just had to wait until I left to realize it, didn't you?" she laughed, her face inching towards his.

"I didn't know how I was going to live without you." He explained as he gripped her waist even tighter.

"Mmm. Now shut up and kiss me?"

And he gladly obliged.

-FIN-

A/N: I told you it isn't one of my best. Haha. Ah, well. Reviews make me better, I promise. :D

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